In mourning
August 8, 2010
Everything around me
looks like a children’s picture-book now
and this is how it’s going to be
and this is how it’s going to be seem
until all the Pulitzer’s come back from Hawaii,
with their pens between their lips
and their suitcases bursting like the ocean.
This is how it is, in mourning.
There was a day when you smiled,
with your mouth that had two lips,
two peeled peaches, opening and closing
like the heartbeat of a hotel lobby.
There was a day when you sat perched, quite remarkably,
on a rung of the great wooden ladder,
that stretched upwards, like your arms, to the boardroom of Trinity,
where three wise men sat, and drank red wine very slowly.
There was a moment, quite suddenly,
when you declined their invitation
and stepped down from the slippery-slide to glory
with your hair a dripping mess.
Surely this makes the six o’clock news, I thought
But the novelists had already boarded the plane.
There was a day of endless superlatives,
of Latin and prefix and light.
Half torn now in front of me, the mundane are setting up camp,
so I’ll wait, until the real world that came attached to your hip
calls up its publisher and says, ‘’it’s time, I’m coming home.’’
untitled
July 31, 2010
admittedly, i found your body
in a shallow grave in my backyard
i was shaking like a lost child
your body smoking like a fallen star
drastic, offputting, offensive, hurtful
February 18, 2010
i like the life of a ghost
because often times
i’d wanted to die
skin is overrated,
anyway
and i can’t imagine
with you all here
why i’d want to be,
too. i suppose it’s
lonely,
with no one to
joke around with
about the pictures
that you take,
but the scales are
my gods
and in weighing the
options i find
that the life of a ghost
is far superior.
I Won’t Be Long
February 2, 2010
An unimportant twilight errand
Against casual entreaties
But a promise wafting in the tresses of mulberry hair
Scented with fresh shampoo
Whispered in a cabled charcoal pullover
I won’t be long, she said.
A garbled moan from the engine outside
The whine ebbing to silence
To screech a thunderous collision unheard
In headlights too rapid for response
Red then ringing then red and white
Powdered glass a fleeting monument
Timidly lingering evidence of the unfulfilled
This is loneliness, I promise.
You have my word, I won’t be long
wally’s world
December 21, 2009
on the way to the
vee eff double yew
i saw dereks in the
cornfields
and i can see why you’d
not want to be here.
i hear they sent you
in to cash-for-gold
and got a settlement
from a white house,
overnight,
postdated for two years,
and i see what the govern
meant. side-note:
my baby she is a cow in
the pasture,
all four of her stomachs
filtering the asbestos-grass
(have you seen the commercial
for the new tree ants?
delicious, i hear).
my friend denny, see, he lives
on every corner,
he puts syrup on his bread
and sells you awful puns for
10 a piece.
and, i suppose, i’m glad as hell
you finally walked out of wally’s
world, we’re all still unsure
as to why any of us bought
tickets. ’till then it’s midnight
in the living section.
to my dead grandpa rich
December 14, 2009
while visions of you are still
fresh in my head
i ought write a poem
about how you are dead
about how you let
yourself drift out to sea
when the grim reaper came
to town
i was a commander
underneath you in battle
herdsmen in computer chairs
leading our cattle
i remember the opium
sun on the beach
before wilford brimley
came to town
i don’t much write tributes
to men twice my size
i gave it my best
and we both know that’s a lie
but you were in florida
where they stuff ‘em away
before the chariots
came to town
(you were my favorite,
too)
Essence
September 1, 2009
When considering the final conclusion
The closing stages of a blaze soon to be extinguished
Embers glowing their brightest before at last they fade
Heartbeats ebbing to an even rhythm amidst the hearth
Radiating undulations and ashen remembrances
Furrowing to heights unknown
Trembling to hushed rest unseen
After everything the trajectory revealed
Cremated powder remnants
Charred and stained against time
But the legacy of its warmth still burning
More brilliantly than ever before
Death of a Poem
May 15, 2009
There is a poem
just beneath this surface
of jumbled thoughts
and nonsensical moments,
banging against the walls,
burning the roof,
huffing and puffing
and threatening to blow
my mental house down
(as well as my mind);
but in the end,
the walls, they hold,
and the roof, the roof
is not on fire,
and the poem slowly grows silent
succumbing to the stronger force
of indifferent apathy,
dying along with its
potential beauty.
graphite crap
December 4, 2008
the tip of my pencil is no longer made
from lead but i’m told has been swapped
for something called graphite
they claim it will kill me much slower
but i’m afraid before it begins to affect
my body or even my brain it has already
killed my plight
for if that which i use to write with has
no affect on the longevity of my life
i find i must seek for acidic paper
or take up drugs while writing so i can
bleed over these pages and hope
the future holds something terrible
as i spit out my fears on the page
begging the last few words will somehow
be dabbled in blood from my sweat filled
brow.
alas, i’m too hopeful and perhaps too healthy
which helps my dreams for the future
on why most poet’s brilliance isn’t discovered until after they die
September 26, 2008
our words as awesome as they may be
the pages we color with melody
nothing we do will ever hope to seem
as poetic as passing to death
most permanently
A Man for and With Others
September 5, 2008
I am no longer a student
But a scholar A follower
Of the teachings of Ignatius
My life is changing rapidly
To transform into a new
Being of competence
To show the world my best
What am I to become?
What am I in four short years?
What am I in my prime?
What am I when I move on to the other half of life?
I answer you now
I shall become
A Man for and With Others
I will be
A Man for and With Others
I shall succeed as
A Man for and With Others
When I leave this place I’ll be still
A Man for and With Others
edible attire and the hudsucker
August 12, 2008
while appealing in intimate settings
(or so i hear)
seems like an idea to be thrown
from the one hundredth
story
window
tied to a large brick
so that it may reach terminal velocity
and if it cannot die (due to it’s lack of life)
it should at least be
destroyed
or banished to the part of society
to be made into
mocking film stories
like the hula hoop
My Father and the Reaper
August 8, 2008
Part I: My father shot me, bang bang
I was created a girl, you see, and
wantin’ to be genderless was my sin,
“My daughter, I’m send you back to your maker.
Only he can make you whole for you’re unnatural.”
Steadfast was his resolve as he pointed the gun at me,
I didn’t wish to be a boy, you see,
but he shot me before I could tell him;
I wanted to be genderless.
I was the garbage can
rolling empty on the side of the street
one shot through my wasted heart,
nothin’ but pungent darkness.
Tell my father, he fostered and killed an empty vessel.
Tell him,
Tell him,
Tell him, I had yet to be born.
My father is not an evil man, you see
he is a simple man with ordinary values
uprooting all he doesn’t understand.
I wanted grace
a heart, not bruised or calloused
a mind, pristine and free
and eyes, innocent and clear.
So that I could feel like it wasn’t too late,
So that the day I’d finally be born and alive, I could say :
I am not my mother
I am not my father
I am not a girl
I am not a boy
I am human
***
Part II: The Reaper
Dark
Dark
Father, it is so dark.
Ah, 17 years old…
life had the promise of a bebop dance at the neon lights.
I thought there would be more days
Days when I’d breathe stardust till the break of dawn,
Days when freedom would cost 10 cents a piece at the farmer’s market
Days when I would needn’t stop for the rain or wait for love.
Fly me away
Fly me away from my own mind
Father, it is so silent.
my beautiful mom took the night train,
she promised to come back,
when the night is beautiful again
when the passing wind needn’t flirt with the outside, with damaged stars,
and plastic bags that always float one step further.
The reaper came from the bullet
and into darkness it took me,
to the place of the unwanted children-
dark and desolated.
The fabric of life and death is too coarse against my soul,
it rubs the good stuff away,
and soon I will fade into darkness.
Wish me back
Have Mercy, Father
wish me back
alive and well
So I can finally rest in peace.
My Sieve and Sand
July 31, 2008
My Sand is my emotions
My Sieve is my mind
My Sand moves through the motions
Whilst My Sieve looks behind
Confusion
July 9, 2008
People ask
“How do you feel?”
I say “Fine”
But do I really?
Am I to know
If I can not cry?
If I lie awake at night
Thinking without control
But not of my mother?
rcribay
joshuagrace
freakynewchild
Tucker J. Collins
saxsquatch
David X. Hugo
larsalexander
tynedaile
